Excitement rises as Cape crusaders set it all up again

5th November 2009

THIS time next week, it definitely won't be Spain and, fingers crossed, it won't rain either.

The sporting energy in Hawke's Bay will be centred at a former sheepfarming station, only half an hour's drive from Hastings or Napier, with some of the most breathtaking views this country can offer.

You won't find sheep grazing on this prime property converted to an exclusive resort but marshals, wearing unmistakably fluorescent shirts, will be herding people with the help of ropes to keep them at a distance from four world-class professional golfers.

Masters and US Open champion Angel Cabrera won't be among the chosen four to vie for the US dollars. Neither will fellow 2009 Volvo World Matchplay Championship semifinalist Robert Allenby or Englishman Ross Fisher, who won the event in Spain on Monday.

But losing finalist Anthony Kim will be, flashing his expansive smile and building a rapport with the loose gallery clambering to get up as close as they can to these golfing icons below the age of 30.

Defending champion Hunter Mahan (pronounced Mayhan), Camilo Villegas and Sean O'Hair will join Kim in trying to tame the challenging but exhausting and picturesque Cape Kidnappers Golf Course on Wednesday and Thursday next week.

It'll be a surreal experience for those lucky enough to have bought tickets to watch the US$2 million Kiwi Challenge, especially if they had been watching American Kim, 24, on telly competing in the world matchplay event this week.

If the inaugural challenge last year was anything to go by, this year should also be a humdinger, extra-hole sudden-death play-off or not.

That it is a made-for-TV event is irrelevant. How many people can afford to travel abroad to watch big-time golfers let alone get on the waiting list to be invited to one?

From a journalistic view, to interview these fairway superstars and their astute caddies and to be a heartbeat away from their drives, chips and putts is a once-in-a-lifetime experience. It's also a privilege to be privy to their witty repartee.

It's certainly not like some overhyped heavyweight boxing mismatch where actor Jack Nicholson finds the fight's done and dusted even before he can find his seat. In their 20s, the golfers have impeccable pedigree, last month playing in the annual President's Cup tourney in the States.

Despite their history of kinship on the cut-throat but lucrative PGA Tour, the four will momentarily put aside any brotherly sentiments when they pull out their drivers from their bags.

In a coup, the Bay resort has usurped Kauri Cliffs Golf Course's 18-hole segment - a testimony to how well the region is received, as well as to the organisational skills of last year's playmakers.

Wall St tycoon Julian Robertson, 77, and tour director and son Alex Robertson will be here again to ensure things run smoothly for an event that NBC will televise in the United States two days later and which Sky TV will air in New Zealand on the following weekend of November 21-22.

The proceeds from the ticket sales of the two-day event, akin to last year, will go to the Bay charities of BNZ Save the Kiwi Trust and the Rotary Pathways Project. The ecological work in the background with the flora and fauna at the world-class resort is also commendable.

It is mindboggling to try to fathom how four people chasing a dimpled titanium over 36 holes get to bank so much money.

However, do not make the mistake of thinking they don't earn it. My legs ached after walking around just 18 holes. Imagine what it's like for the players doing it twice over. The caddies, lugging golf bags while scribbling furiously on their tattered notebooks, also earn their keep.

With so many starry-eyed youngsters dreaming about becoming professionals, it'll be a mind-blowing experience for them and perfectly understandable if they are caught wagging school.

Unlike their Australian counterparts, who conveniently forget to attend school a day before the Melbourne Cup race meeting on Tuesdays purely for entertainment value, the Bay children can at least argue with their careers adviser that as a teenage scratchie they may have a future in the man-made garden of Eden.

Perhaps the organisers can hold the event closer to the Labour Day weekend when children won't have to play truant.

Who knows what the future holds for the annual challenge.

Will it ever become as huge as the Melbourne Cup?

Perhaps, more pragmatically, golfing pundits have always talked about Cape Kidnappers as a New Zealand Open venue and that will come to pass.

All said and done, for two days an iconic Bay venue will become a global window to a slice of paradise. For the exclusive few who will be part of it, the experience will be forever etched in their minds.